Skip to main content

Shedding Weight After Diwali

Image
By
In the aftermath of Diwali, most weight watchers are expected to see blue for some time. The scale will remain stubbornly up for a while, making you wonder whether you had behaved really as badly with your eats and exercise the last week to deserve this! And where exactly was the problem?  In what we ate or just the few days that we skipped our exercise routine?
Those who exercise vigorously, pile up kilos rapidly as soon as they stop. Look at the erstwhile sportsmen and dancers. Diego Maradona, the soccer legend from Argentina, became morbidly obese when he stopped playing. His condition was so desperate that he had to undergo a weight reducing bariatric surgery to loose a few score kilos! Many of our vintage cricket heroes seem to have similar problems. Dancers of Bhartnatyam and Kathak pile up kilos when they stop their rigorous practice. Similarly, gym goers are likely to put on more weight when they stop than their “regular walker” friends. My tennis buddies at SGPGI, who play 40 minutes every morning, are not getting lean either.
There is some bad news for gym goers and sports buffs from the research world. Three recent studies have shown that as many as 30% of those who exercise regularly do not lose weight. In fact a few acually gain some, raising concerns about our modern obsession of working out in gyms and taking to vigorous sports as part of our present day lifestyles.
While  exercise workouts is believed to help redistribute body weight, converting  fat into s muscles, the fat percentage in the body also seems to remain unchanged in many. The reason: increased calorie consumption resulting from enhanced appetite caused by the exercise itself. Many “reward” themselves with fatty food after their workouts.
Further, the calories that we burn by exercise are relatively small compared with what our desi mithais and snacks contain. The caloric content of some of the food that we would have eaten recently are high; a glass of soft drink (100 kcals), a sweet (100-300 kcal/piece), dry fruits (300 kcal for a handfull), a samosa or kachori (150 -300 kcal/ piece). If you have snacked through the day visting friends, you might have consumed an extra 1000 to 3000 kcals a day during this phase.
Burning them is not going to be easy. To lose 300 kcals, we have to jog 30 minutes, or cycle for 70 minutes or lift weights for an hour. My tennis buddies and I will have to play an extra set daily for 4 weeks to lose what we have recently gained.
Diet therefore holds the key to losing weight.  Try large bowls of clear soups and salads before meals, suhki roti and boiled veggies, 8-10 glasses of water a day. Stop eating when you are half full and still hungry. And get rid of all the sweets, snacks and pastries from your home.  You might then regain your shape in the next few weeks. Good luck!
As published in HT City ( Hindustan Times) dated 18 october , 2009.
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Food Fads in Liver Disorders

By
In an attempt at trying to do well to those they love, spouses and parents often enforce diets on patients of liver diseases that often turn out to be detrimental. The commonest food fad is pale insipid boiled cabbage being doled out to nauseous patients suffering from hepatitis that makes them puke even more.  The liver, in a way, is a buzzing manufacturing unit that requires lots of energy to keep its multiple functions going. And it derives all this from the food we eat. During disease, such as during an attack of jaundice, when many of the liver cells get killed, the liver attemptsdamage control by trying to regenerate quickly. For its cells to multiply however, it requires a generous supply of energy that comes from carbohydrates, and protein, the building block for its cells and tissues. Boiled green vegetables unfortunately have neither of these. Hence the situation often progresses to that of a starved liver unable to recuperate due to cut-off food suppl...
2 comments
Read more

How do you like your Tea?

By
The way we drink our tea may not only reflect our taste and style, but our health as well. Tea drinking is around 4700 years old and had its origin in China. Leaves of the shrub Camellia sinensis (tea plant) were in use at that time as a remedy for wounds and diseases. With the legendary emperor Shenong brewing and drinking its extracts, tea drinking became a popular habit in this part of the world. The British, impressed with the brew and the customs that go with drinking it in China and Japan, tried to emulate and evolve a tea-drinking custom of their own, and soon “tea-time”became a familiar term across the globe. Every home or cafe seems to have its own flavour. The north Indian variety of “chay” is a glass of hot creamy milk (more cream as it gets more “special”) with lots of sugar and a lacing of  “tea liquor” of strong tea that grows on lower heights (Assam, Nilgiri, Sri Lanka etc). In contrast, the Chinese and Japanese prefer light green or jasmine tea without a drop of mi...
Post a Comment
Read more

Questions from a Doctor’s Life

By
There is hardly any person in Uttar Pradesh who has not heard of Dr D K Chhabra, a senior neurosurgeon, who died recently. Over the decades his expertise, pragmatic advice and popularity had broken the shackles of his narrow surgical field coming to be known as a “brain-specialist”and a genuine adviser for all health problems. I got to know him in 1987 when I joined the upcoming Sanjay Gandhi PG Institute of Medical Sciences (SGPGI) in Lucknow as a young member of the faculty in Gastroenterology. He had moved from his alma mater the KG Medical College where he is still regarded as a legend. An omnipresent bachelor doctor living in the duty room readily available to help anybody anytime.He was tasked to heading and developing Neurosciences at SGPGI. He had an eye for detail and was tasked additionally by the director to set up not just his department, but the whole hospital, the building, equipment and the campus. DKC was a tall and handsome man who spoke little. But when he did inl...
1 comment
Read more